Wikipedia’s Reputation in Meltdown

By John Donovan

Unfortunately, the integrity of Wikipedia is corrupted by a policy allowing the anonymous editing of articles.

This fundamental flaw allows articles to be potentially sanitized of any facts embarrassing to a featured subject e.g. an evil oil giant

Larry Sanger, the co-creator of Wikipedia, has recently expressed similar misgivings about how Wikipedia has changed for the worse in recent years. He claims that it has been ruined.

Sanger identifies “anonymous contribution” as being detrimental to the accuracy of online information, which he rightly says is open to corruption by governments, corporations, spies and criminal organisations. He goes on to say that they know how to play the Wikipedian game. Sanger is now embarrassed by Wikipedia and has become its most prominent critic.

Royal Dutch Shell is one such corporation. Its in-house spies (from Corporate Affairs Security (CAS) and Shell Global Security have also been involved in these matters. Shell has been obsessed with my connection with Wikipedia and set up a team to combat my activities. I have Shell internal correspondence proving the obsession and the sinister steps taken.

Late last month, a cybersecurity outfit working for Shell sent a 5-day ultimatum to the hosting company for my royaldutchshell.website. The website is focused on Shell’s corruption of Wikipedia articles about the company, including the Wikipedia article: royaldutchshellplc.com.

Basically, the cybersecurity firm tried to kill the royaldutchshell.website by using outright intimidation not against me, but the relevant website hosting company. The website remains in operation.

The royaldutchshellplc.com Wikipedia article has been on display for over 14 years. It identifies my father Alfred Donovan as being a current owner of the royaldutchshellplc.com website. In fact, he passed away over 8 years ago. His death was reported at the time in a Guardian newspaper article. The incorrect information remains to this day despite my notification of his death to Wikipedia.

Attempts were also made recently, partly by anonymous editors, to kill the royaldutchshellplc.com Wikipedia article. The current plan is to merge it with the Royal Dutch Shell Wikipedia article. That would allow any remaining content from the website article to be edited out of existence.

I can only speculate on whether the simultaneous attempts to kill the royaldutchshell.website and the related royaldutchshellplc.com Wikipedia article are coincidental or otherwise.

It is also a provable fact that Mr Sanger’s expressed distaste for Wikipedia is in line with what I have been saying on the record for many years.

Listed below are some of the recent articles about Mr Sanger and his devastating comments about the integrity of Wikipedia.

Telegraph article headlined: “The Left has taken over Wikipedia and stripped it of neutrality, says co-creator.”

EXTRACT FROM THE ARTICLE: Asked if he thought Wikipedia could be trusted to give truthful information, he replied: “Well, it depends on what you think the truth is.” 

MailOnline Article By ARIEL ZILBER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM: PUBLISHED: 01:17, 16 July 2021 | UPDATED: 18:51, 16 July 2021: ‘Nobody should trust Wikipedia,’ its co-founder warns: Larry Sanger says site has been taken over by left-wing ‘volunteers’ who write off sources that don’t fit their agenda as fake news. Wikipedia can no longer be trusted as a source of unbiased information…

FOX News Article By Charles Creitz | Fox News: 22 July 2021: Wikipedia co-founder slams the website for having ‘abandoned’ the neutral point of view:

Screenshots from related video…

Further information from the Fox News article and video interview.

Larry Sanger discusses how the website has become more biased on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’. The co-founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, who left the organization more than a decade ago and has increasingly opposed what he says it has evolved into, told Fox News on Thursday that biased and partial actors have “gamed” the user-edited database, ruining what it was meant to be.

Host Tucker Carlson went on to note that people have increasingly found slanted or missing context and facts in Wikipedia entries, as well as the dynamic of editors “playing up something that doesn’t seem to be true… In the above Tucker Carson/Larry Sanger video, Sanger identifies “anonymous contribution” as being detrimental to the accuracy of online information as it is open to the information being corrupted by Governments, corporations, spies and criminal organisations. They know how to play the Wikipedian game. Sanger says he is embarrassed and is now a leading critic of Wikipedia. 

On 17 July 2021, I Googled the following question: what percentage of Wikipedia editors hide their names/aliases.

This was the top of the page response:

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.